


ii. fever

by icymapletree



Series: febuwhump/febufluff 2020 [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Febuwhump, Fever, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Quentin beck is an ASSHOLE, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22529293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icymapletree/pseuds/icymapletree
Summary: Peter catches sight of the monster, who has green scales and is wearing a lab coat with the Midtown logo. “Aw, shit.”“Language!”Peter ignores Tony’s scolding. “That’s my old physics teacher, Doctor Connors.”“Of course it is,” Tony says, and the eye roll in his tone is palpable.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: febuwhump/febufluff 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618837
Comments: 12
Kudos: 233





	ii. fever

Peter swings onto the scene, hesitant as to where he should go. He never did quite reach the kind of comradery the original Avengers have with each other. He still works well with them, but he doesn’t fit in the puzzle like everyone else does. Peter looks for a spot to jump in and he doesn’t know where to do so-- as usual, the Avengers are working beautifully together, fighting like trained dancers.

Tony is in the air and he’s blasting some of the larger flying aliens with flashes of blue. Rhodey fights beside him, the machine gun on his shoulder rapidly firing. Vision and Sam are also gliding through the sky, trying to fight some of the larger beasties. The ground is taken care of by the regulars - like Cap, Clint, Nat, and Bruce (who’s Hulked out and bounding between buildings). 

“Yo, Kar, tap me into Mister Stark’s comms.”

“ _Will do, Peter._ ”

His display flashes, meaning he’s online. “What’s the deal this time, Mister Stark?”

“Jesus, kid, shouldn’t you be in school?

“They’re under lockdown. I snuck out and bribed the sub.”

Tony groans. “Of course you did… Here’s the rundown-- the Lizard tried to clone himself, ended up creating a dimensional portal instead, hence: aliens.”

“Why would you want to clone yourself?”

“I don’t know, Spidey. Don’t question it until after we’re done fighting for our lives and please kick some alien ass in the meantime.”

“Copy that,” Peter says, thwipping closer to the monster, who has green scales and is wearing a lab coat - a familiar one, with the Midtown logo. “Aw, shit.”

“Language!”

Peter ignores Tony’s scolding. “That’s my old physics teacher, Doctor Connors.”

“Of course it is,” Tony says, and the eye roll in his tone is palpable.

“He wasn’t at school today-- ouch!”

Tony flies up beside Peter, who has an alien clamped on his foot. He fires a careful repulsor beam, and the little rascal goes flying.

“Shouldn’t we be, you know, wearing headphones?”

“Spider-Man, what on earth do you mean?”

“Y’know, like the mandrakes from Harry Potter?” When he’s met with silence, he flippantly waves a hand and mumbles, “I’ll workshop it.”

He logs into the group comms and occupies himself with handling some straggling monsters on the outskirts of the fight. The other superheroes looked like they had it under control. 

Apparently they hadn’t, because Cap comes over the comms while Peter is trying to shake a particularly persistent creature. “Spider-Man, can we have your help in the middle of the city?”

“Yep! Just lemme--” he punches the alien, “handle Thumb Thumb here.”

He heads to Midtown Manhattan, where there is a swarm of the things, and Clint is the only one who has eyes on Doctor Connors. One of the flying things is heading for Clint’s face, and Peter kicks it away.

“Thanks Spidey!” he yells, but is soon knocked over by an alien coming from behind.

That leaves Peter one on one with the Lizard. They do their little rendezvous, Connors taking hits at Peter who is mostly playing defensive.

“Come with me, Spider-Man, and you’ll find out what surprises I have for you.”

Peter winds his fist back. “You ain’t getting me to some secondary location, sister!”

He goes for the punch, but the Lizard catches it.

“Wow, you’re stronger than I remember! Who’s your personal trainer?” Peter asks, going to punch him again, this time with more force.

He knocks Connors back a bit, but his knuckles get cut up by the thick scales.

The Lizard whips his tail Peter’s way, and Peter flips over it. “It’s like I’m an elementary schooler again, playing helicopter!”

He whips his tail back toward Peter as he tries to swipe at him with his claws. Peter dodges the swipes, but the spiky scales on Lizard’s tail puncture his side. 

Now that he’s hurt, Peter’s getting more agitated-- he grabs the Lizard by his tail and slams him into the wall. 

Peter is suddenly aware of the warm and sticky stain on his red and black suit.

“Should’ve worn the metal suit that your sugar daddy made for you,” Connors spits.

“Don’t talk about Mister Stark that way!” he snarls, kicking him again so he stays down. 

“What about your pretty little girlfriend, huh?”

Peter’s heart stutters in his chest. “I… I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“You’re telling me that you and the pretty little girl in Harrington’s class aren’t a thing, _Peter_?”

His heart stops this time, his brain barely making the connection that he’s Peter in a Spider-Man suit. Peter punches him again, his fists coming down hard and fast until he hears Mister Stark’s voice, but it’s not over the comms.

“Peter!” he yells, “Web him up!”

He gets the same kind of shock from Tony calling him Peter as he got from Connors calling him Peter. But all it takes is Tony’s voice for him to come to his senses, the hits slowing down. Connors’ scaly face is bloodied, and it makes Peter feel sick.

He webs up Connors, but he doesn’t feel like himself anymore. Ever since the close call with Beck, it doesn’t feel right for anyone outside of the Avengers the to know who he is.

Time freezes, and he remembers the last time he lost control. He’s become _unpredictable_ as Doctor Banner called it, ever since he was thrown into simulation after simulation. He could’ve killed Doctor Connors, and someone might’ve said the man deserved it, but Peter didn’t think that anyone deserves to have their life taken away.

He’s brought back the present by Tony’s voice and the clap of a metal hand on his shoulder. “Good work, kid,” he says.

“I almost killed him,” Peter responds, quiet.

“But you didn’t.”

“If it wasn’t for you--”

“But you _didn’t_.”

Peter looks up at Tony. To him, with a cracked lense of his mask paired with his wide brown Bambi eyes, Peter looks more like a kid than he ever has.

“Why don’t you head to the debriefing, kid?”

Peter nods, small and abrupt. He doesn’t feel like swinging, and he doesn’t want to go to the debriefing. 

The debriefing is short, they always only give the bare minimum information to the state and city officials. Most intergalactic issues are handled at the Avengers level now, at least since the revised Accords.

Still, Peter helps comfort the police officers who just had their first alien encounter even as he starts to feel progressively worse. They’re weary of him at first, probably because of the whole getting accused of being a murderer thing, but Peter’s just thankful that Doctor Strange was able to keep his secret identity under wraps.

Despite all of this, Peter has to wait for Tony so he chooses an appealing looking bench to sit on. His muscles are screaming at him every time he moves, and he feels an exhaustion settling into his bones like he never has before.

The sun feels really hot all of a sudden, and all Peter can think about are hot-pockets. His insides are ice cold, but the friction of his suit on his skin is making him burn.

“Karen, turn off my heater.”

“ _Your heater is not on, Peter._ ”

“Are you sure?”

“ _Positive._ ”

His feet are nearly numb, and that’s when he sees leafy plants sprouting up through the concrete and wrapping around his ankles. As the pressure grows, he starts to feel his heartbeat in his feet-- a _thump-thump, thump-thump_ that shakes him to the core.

A vine creeps up the back of his neck and curls around it, and suddenly he’s gasping for air until bugs take the vines’ place-- they’re big black spiders with piercing amber eyes, multiplying and shimmying up his legs and his arms. They climb all over them, their sticky arms like little suction cups on his skin.

Peter flails, trying to get rid of them. They just climb faster, covering the lenses of his mask. He can’t see, he can’t see, he can’t--

He feels the bugs crawl off of his face, but Beck is right in front of him, holding out a hand. “Take it, Peter,” he says, looking down at the boy. 

Peter stumbles backward and lands on his backside. He uses his hands to scramble away from the man, the uncracked lense of his mask unnaturally wide. 

“It’s okay, kid. You can take my hand.”

“I don’t trust you,” he says, breathing heavily. He closes his eyes, sitting up a little bit and trusting his spider sense to warn him if Beck made any moves.

Someone puts their hand on his shoulder, and Peter’s own hand rushes to meet it. He could hurt Beck, he realizes, he’s no naive teenager anymore-- he squeezes Beck’s hand, only putting a fraction of his strength into it. 

Beck’s bone makes a crunching sound and it’s enough to make Peter nauseous. Beck will stop manipulating him, now that he’s seen what Peter can do-- what _Spider-Man_ can do-- 

But then a yelp causes him to open his eyes, and it’s not Beck’s, but Tony’s face he sees, contorted in pain. 

Fear and guilt, cold like ice, run through him as the world goes black.

**x**

Peter’s throat feels clogged, the air around him hazy. Every sound is muddled, like he’s underwater. He assesses his surroundings and the sharp smell of antiseptic tells him that he is in the Med Bay.

“He’s been holding back,” a tired voice - Tony? - says.

“You know this. His punches are fatal.”

“I guess. I’ve never been able to connect the words _Peter_ and _fatal_.” Tony sighs and runs his uninjured hand through his hair. “He’s gonna beat himself up over this, Helen.”

“You’ll heal.”

“I know that, and I know _he_ knows that, but he’ll still blame himself. His guilt complex is bigger than mine.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Har, har,” he laughs sarcastically, but his voice is shaky. “You think he’ll like the cast?”

“Of course he’ll like it, Tony. He likes - or at least pretends to like - anything that you do.”

“What do you mean he pretends?”

At that moment, Peter’s eyes snap open. The sheets rustle and Tony jerks to look at him. 

“I hurt you,” Peter whispers.

Tony rushes to Peter’s bedside, sitting in the chair that was set out. “Yeah, you did,” he says, and Peter’s heart drops.

“But it wasn’t your fault, buddy. You had such a high fever you were hallucinating. Pete, you were _poisoned_ by that dumbass gecko’s scales--”

“It was a Lizard, god, stop trying to get me to deflect, but Tony, I _crushed_ your hand. I thought… I thought you were Beck. All the stuff about trusting you, that was like what he used to say…” He inhales. “I didn’t know they were hallucinations. I thought it Beck. I thought he was back.”

“You know what happened to him, Peter. He’s not coming back.”

Peter thinks of Beck’s blood on his hands, when he thought it was an illusion but it was just real life. When he thought he was in control, but he wasn’t.

“He’s not,” Peter agrees.

“You’re right. You’ll never have to worry about him ever again.”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut tight, trying to get rid of the images of Tony that were put in his head, of Tony _dying_ , and that monster saying to trust him-- 

And for once, they actually do disappear.

When Peter does open his eyes again, they’re caught by the love in Tony’s eyes. If he would’ve told his eight year old self he’d get to know what being loved by Tony Stark feels like, he’d never believe it. 

But he’s distracted by the next thing he sees-- a red and blue cast wrapped around Tony’s wrist and hand. “Really?” Peter asks.

Tony twists his arm a little bit, showing Peter a crude Sharpie drawing of a spider. “Y’know, I thought I might honor my favorite young adult.”

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know what this was lmao
> 
> at first i was like WHEE writing i'm finally writing an avengers team-up... but then peter got stabbed and it was still kind of fluffy.
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated! (:
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/icymapletree)!


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